Will Gay Teenagers Be Protected from Mad Therapists and Whacked-Out Parents?

Are you gay and your parents want you to be straight? Have they suggested different "therapies" to make you "normal"? A bill working its way through the California state legislature seeks to protect you from such bad craziness so you can't be forced into shock treatments or any other demented procedure.

Written by California State Senator Ted Lieu and sponsored by the gay rights group Equality California, Senate Bill 1172 would force psychotherapists to tell gay patients about the mental and physical harms of undertaking any so-called "gay therapies." Therapists would also need the consent of a patient before moving forward with their dangerous work.

Most importantly, the bill seeks to stop all gay therapies of minors, regardless of the wishes of his or her parents. So you have to be at least 18 years old and sign off on treatment before a whacked-out therapist can do anything to you.

"It's long past time to do everything in our power to put an end to the use of therapy tactics that have no sound scientific basis and that cause lifelong damage," says Clarissa Filgioun, EQCA Board president, in a press statement.

The bill will undoubtedly face opposition from therapists who make a despicable living by messing with the hearts, minds, and souls of gay folks. But if placed on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown, he will almost certainly sign it into law.

Incredibly, gay therapies from the electro-treatment era of the 1950s and '60s still exist today -- called "aversion therapy," gays and lesbians have been hooked up to a high voltage battery and shocked when looking at pictures of naked people of the same sex.

If you ever saw the sickening forced therapy scenes in the film Clockwork Orange, it's somewhat similar.

One gay youngster in the Mid-West, for example, went through jaw-dropping torture after he confided to his father he was attracted to a male best friend. Forced to look at pictures of men, Samuel Brinton was then electrocuted, had freezing ice cubes placed in his hands, and burned.